Just a myth
by squeakythe2nd
Summary: An Empire captain has a grudge against the Skaven and wishes to settle it. One thing stands in her way. Everybody knows that the Skaven aren't real. Rated M for Gore, violence, swearing and potential sexual themes
1. Chapter 1

Hello, Squeaky here.

I don't own Warhammer. All copyrights go towards Games Workshop and/or their respective owners.

Anyway, enjoy.

"Forward- forward coward-spleens!" The imposing figure of Warlord Gnawfang snarled, watching as the sea of worthless ratmen scurried forward, not wishing to be victims of his wrath. Getting thousands to risk their lives through fear, now _that_ was power. He allowed his lips to curl forward in a malicious smile.

The entrance to the dwarf-thing nest was narrow, with imposing rock on every side. The warlord could smell the stench of fear musk his underlings gave out as they faced warhammer and blunderbuss. The skaven returned fire, but their slings did little more than ping harmlessly of the stout dwarfern battle line. Sometimes a short warrior would stiffen, then fall the floor with a loud clang, the tale-tell sight of a green warpstone trail signifying the work of a jezial. Each time the dwarfs would just pack tighter together, refusing to give their homes to the ramen.

Like any good Skaven Warlord, Gnawfang had no plans to actually get into combat. He had placed himself as far back from the fighting as possible, ensuring that a large screen of bodies took any arrows or bullets that would have otherwise hit him. He felt no pity or remorse for them- if anything it was their fault they were so low in the rungs of Skavendom. He watched as countless Skaven shrieked and died as the dwarf-thing missiles pounded into their ranks. Yet countless more poured through the narrow tunnel, a literal sea of bodies.

Gnawfang stood a plenty of paws higher than his underlings and his fur was the jet black of a stormvermin. Just looking into his selfish, red eyes showed that he was a cruel, callous ratman, even by their standards. He had started off as a lowly (if large) clanrat, and had worked his way up the hierarchy of Skavendom in the traditional and expected manner. He had twisted words towards his favour, bullied his way to the first picks of the scavenge pile. Then there were his rivals, those who had stood in the way of his greatness. He had drowned ratmen in barrels of stolen dwarf ale, throttled them his with tail and had buried them underneath rockslides. It was, after all, hardly his fault that the rocks were too stupid to stay in place. And any Skaven asinine enough to stand and gawk at the rocks as they tumbled deserved to die anyway. Everything about him meant that he was the true warlord of Clan Scrak. He was mighty! He was powerful! He was fearsome! He was terrible! He was…

He yelped as a bullet narrowly missed his neck, pinging off a rock and hitting an unfortunate Skaven, who then fell to the floor and began to moan pathetically. He placed his paws on his head and tried to hide himself in the sea of rat bodies, the stench of fear musk clouding his snout. Bullets kept on flying around him and he pressed his body to the rock, whispering a pray to the Horned Rat to not let one a great as him be killed by some stupid-fool dwarf things. They had the gall to shoot at him! He'd personally rip out their spleens for such behaviour. He'd then slowly boil said organs and shove them the throats of their whelps. 

When he was sure that those idiotic dwarf-things had decided to fire at bigger threats rather than a mere lone Skaven, he risked sticking his head up again, before rising back into a dignified position. He could see the looks in his minions eyes, testing his weakness. He snapped some commands and snarled at any underlings who would dare take advantage of his recently prone state, who quickly displaced their throats in a gesture of servitude. If he didn't have more pressing concerns, he would have torn said throats out of at least three of them to ensure that they didn't try anything funny.

"Skurn! Get your fool-hide over here now," Gnawfang snarled, watching as his prized fangleader scurried towards him, shoving lesser skaven aside with his bulk.

"Yes- yes oh most despicable of tyrants?" Skurn asked, reloading his warplock pistol and firing, dropping a rival moaning to the floor. The fangleader chittered inwardly; he would just chalk it up to the poor, noble Skib being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"How much longer will this fight-battle last-stay?"

Skurn shrugged, and then Gnawfang's glare and snarl suggested that it would be highly in the interest of his continued survival to come up with some form of an answer.

"Dwarf-things are stubborn and stupid-fools. They do not yield. They do no tremble under the might of Gnawfang," Skurn said, cringing and trying his best to look like just another weakling whelp, who wouldn't dare try to usurp the warlord.

Gnawfang brought the handle of his halberd crashing down onto Skurn's snout, who yelped and began to rub it. Tears almost sprung up into his eyes, but through sheer willpower (and healthy attention to his own survival), he kept them back, ignoring the pain.

"Everybody trembles at Warlord Gnawfang!" Gnawfang snarled at a trembling Skurn.

"Yes-yes oh most despicable of despots. Dwarf-things are packed tightly together. Weak-stupid clanrats and fool slaves can't get through their shield wall,"

Gnawfang paused. Even though he hated to admit it, he could see that the battle was going badly. Why, he could see places _not_ occupied by ratmen. At this point in the battle he would pull time time-honoured tactic of tactically retreating in order to preserve his glory for the greater benefit of Skavendom. For the worthless dregs around him it would be an honour to lay down their lives for the continued survival of one of, no the greatest, warlord in Skavendom. He would have, except there was no hope in Hell-Pit that he'd turn his back on an underling with a gun. Only fool-meat would be so stupid as to pull something like that. Cursing the tinker-rat who decided to give the loathsome oath such a weapon, he cast his gaze around his army, hoping to spy something to carve a hole into the ranks of the dwarfs. A grin curled on his lips as he saw the grey-robed, ram-horned form of Grey Seer Kraddle. He was raising is staff high and ushering his minions forward for the glory of the Great Horned Rat.

"Kraddle! For the glory of the horned one, move-come over here-here!" Gnawfang commanded, watching as the seer picked his way over the rocks and to his side, charms dangling on his staff.

"Yes-yes Gnawfang?" Kraddle asked. Being a chosen of the Horned Rat, he saw no reason to flatter the warlord.

"Use magic-spells! Cast apart the ranks of the dwarf-things! Break apart their fool-hide shields! Show them to fear Clan Scrak!"

The grey seer nodded, then pointed his staff at the dwarfern shield wall, whispering mental prays to his god. A tingling sensation ran through Gnawfang's fur and for one terrible moment of dawning comprehension he thought that maybe Kraddle had decided to place hex on him, but he soon felt the energy wash over him. He then looked at the dwarfen line and frowned. There wasn't even a single dead dwarf Useless half-baked, half-witted, half-brained, half, prophet of the Horned One! He jabbed a claw at the seer's breast.

"Trying to make Gnawfang look-seem like a fool-fool hmm?" Gnawfang threatened, wanting to snap the horns off the seer.

"Wait!" Kraddle squealed, pointing towards the dwarfen ranks, "Look-see at dwarf-things!"

Gnawfang didn't place the seer in a chokehold, but instead glared at him and peered at the ranks of dwarfs and raised his eyebrows. He saw that the dwarfen armour was crumbling. He saw the iron rust before his eyes and flake away, near invincible plates of gromril break on the spears of his clanrats. Their shields now splintered and broke apart with ease as the otherwise cheap spears of the skaven broke their shields like a hammer upon glass. The clanrats were taking advantage of the sudden turn in the tides of battle. Vast outnumbers in addition to a vulnerable and weak foe made the skaven _almost_ brave. They crawled over the dwarfs, stabbing the bellies of their hated foes with a mixture of glee and spite.

Kraddle then pointed his staff forward again and then an enormous bolt of green warp-lightning sprung from its tip, arcing toward the dwarfen lines. It rent smouldering holes of flesh and iron through the torsos of the dwarf ranks. Gnawfang twitched his nose and could smell the burning flesh of plenty of dead skaven and dwarfs. He looked at the now lacking dwarf formation and saw that barely a handful of dwarfs remained, outnumbered hundreds to one. He tightened his grip on his halberd and licked his fangs in glee.

Now it was time to enter the fight.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello again, so it's time for chapter 2

Feel free to review this story, be It negative, positive or middling.

There were some inventions in the Warhammer world that were just a bit… odd. Ikit Klaw couldn't have been in the sanest of minds when he decided that it would be suitable to ride in an unstable wooden wheel that randomly shot arcing bolts of warp-lighting. Evidently one Empire engineer could see the devastation that one rocket caused and therefore deemed it a good idea to get as many rockets as he could find and build an artillery piece to fire them all at once. However there was no doubt that such inventions were the pinnacle of warfare. That they were mad, but could still carve through ranks of enemy soldier like a hot knife slicing through better

However whoever the manic was who thought it to be a good idea to chain two great cave squigs together and use them in battle as a maelstrom of spinning, bouncing and lots of teeth was clearly several a few flames short of a horror.

The great cave squig was not a peaceful creature; all it ever thought about was ripping everything to pieces with its enormous jaws. Indeed the creature was a round ball of red muscles with pathetically short arms that served it no purposes. Its jaw took up most of its body and its legs could bound in forward like a rock fired from a lobba and they were creatures of a permanent unpleasant disposition.

Two tied specimens were snarling at each other, twisting around on their chains, wishing to rip the other apart. They tugged each other along in a snarling frenzy, bounding, tripping and tumbling down the tunnel. The rats in the cave scurried away, or were ripped apart in an instance.

Slipgit Crooker sneered from his hiding place in the rocks. Those 'umies would never know what in the name of Mork (or just maybe Gork) had hit them. He couldn't wait until he saw the squigs crash into them and hear the spilling of the blood and see limbs fly through the air. He pulled his hood closer over his features and waited, beady eyes and the tip of his nose peering outwards.

A terrible sound made Slipgit jump. He almost bolted down the tunnel back to his mates, but he was an usually brave gobbo and risked a peek out from the rocks. His eyes widened.

"Oh zogging fuck," He muttered under his foetid breath; he'd heard a man say fuck after a doom diver had driven into his guts and spilt them onto the floor and he'd liked the sound of the word.

The squigs had managed to break their chains apart and were now bounding down the tunnel and out of sight, snarling and gnashing their teeth all the way. That was the way to the Sleekly Gibbous tribe. Good. He'd never liked those scrawny, whiney little bastards. He hopes their smug git of big boss was reduced to a bloody paste. Then he heard the sound of humans talking. Yes they were carrying weapon and yes there were a lot of them. He saw one individual with a long fiery red beard and hair He'd once seen one of them look angrily at his mates and they'd set on fire. Just like that. Screams and heat and everything.

Getting to the conclusion that he'd gain absolutely nothing more from staying here, he bolted back down the tunnel. A lump formed in his throat. Those squigs had cost a fortune.

The warboss was going to kill him.

A snarling sound could be heard in the distance.

"Madam did you hear that?" Herr Otto Flurgrim asked, running his fingers through his orange beard, staff gripped tightly in his hand.

"Moor would have heard that," Captain Elista sighed, signalling at her troops to keep walking.

"I reckon he would of heard that " Fredrick, leader of the 5th Ostermark bulls, said, owner of a proudly combed and groomed goatee.

Elista saw the tired looks on the faces of her men and decided it would be a good time to take a break. She told them to stop walking and rest. They nodded and sat down in groups on the pathway, some taking swigs from their water satchels, others milling around decks of cards. She placed her herself on a reasonably flat stone and took in a few breaths, observing her troops. Their morale seemed high, which was always a good sign.

Elista, or Frau Elista Rlich von Ostermark as she was known formally by her documents, could have been aged anywhere between twenty-two and thirty-two, with dark hair and white skin. She'd been found in the ruins of a small Empire town just a whisker away from a swamp. Nobody else could be found, except this small girl found under a pile a rubble, muttering "scary-things" to herself over and over again. A group of Blazing Sun knights had picked the small, terrified, child out from the rubble and taken her to one of the noble houses of Nuln. The baron and baroness, unable to conceive their own child, took this child on as their own.

For most of childhood and teenage years her life had been happy. The baron and baroness had looked after her, treated her well and taught the ways of being a noble lady. She had friends and the food was simply divine. Life would have grand for all of them, except she knew who had destroyed the village. It wasn't some Beastmen as all official documents said, but she knew it was the ratmen. The vermintide. The sewer creepers. The Skaven. Whenever she tried to tell her parents they would just smile at her and praise her active imagination. Despite how much she said how different they were from beastmen, their shapes, their method of attack. Still the ignored her pleas.

Yet each night in bed she would think about them, the ringing of their bells, the scratching of their claws and the endless tide of rats that scampered around their feet. She would sketch drawings of them, write down every detail she could remember about them. Naturally her parents were worried about her, but the doctors assured her that she was still young and therefore there was nothing to worry about.

This was far from the only thing that troubled the two of them. She would ask them to take her back to the ruins, request that her parents ask they not be cleared up. When she got their she would scamper along the rubble, each time taking a piece of wood, a broken spear and most queerly one time a string of bells. She'd keep them in her room, observing them. Eventually her parents grew tired (and worried) of these pursuits and ordered the ruins cleared, despite her protests. There were no such thing as the Skaven they told her. She was a pretty girl with potential and she shouldn't waste it brining herself down to the level of superstitious commoners. She was young after all and there would be plenty of dukes and princes who'd wish to take her hand in marriage.

Naturally, she disobeyed them.

She had told her parents that she would move to Osterland, to fight the vermin. She had heard persistent rumours that strange, vermin-like figures would covert the lumps of hellish warpstone that landed in the ruined capital. In addition to this, she announced that she planned to raise a force to defeat the ratmen who lurked under the banner of those who destroyed her home, friends, family and life. Even if it took her to her grave.

Naturally, her parents found this notion to be ludicrous.

The Ratmen. Were. Not. Real. Her mother had said to her, going an amusing shade of red.

The two of them decided that it would be best for her to forget about all of this, to forget about this "crusade". They kept her in her room with a lock made out the finest steel available, forged from an ore known as "good intentions ". But did this little to stop Elista, who one day in the dead of night opened her window, awkwardly jumped down the ledges of her house, then half hopped- half ran her way across the Empire to Osterland . On the way she spent her time amassing a network of supporters to her cause, people willing to fight, be it for honour, revenge or, most commonly, gold.

The rest, as the scholars of Altdorf liked to say, was history.

"Grugi, pass me that map of yours,"

The hulking, stocky figure of the dwarf slayer Grugi Gutterson walked over to her, searching the pockets of his breaches. He was a squat, muscular figure covered in blue paint who gave too much attention to the rune covered battle-axe of his to be fully sane. Then again, could the same be said for any dwarf.

"Aye manling, here it is," He grumbled at her- which was the most optimistic he ever got. If she had a reckless attitude toward survival and a bard, she would he certainly had some happy tunes played _slightly_ sarcastically into his ear.

She looked at the stale paper and traced her hand over the lines. She couldn't read dwarfish very well, but she knew a few words and she could grasp the basic concepts behind the map. The moon meant night goblins and that triangular mark meant Skaven. There were a few anvils at the edges of the map, signifying small dwarf holds.

"Accord to this, map we should reach the skaven encampment within a few hours," Elista mused.

"Aye, but the chance of it being there is slim,"

Elista knew this. The skaven frequently switched alliances. Clans were destroyed, rebuilt, realigned and destroy again several times in the space of a few years. She'd been told this map was around a year old and it was entirely possible for every skaven to have since scurried their digesting tails to another corner of the old world. Hell they might even be in a snake pit in Lustria. Always look on the bright side of life after all.

"But what does it matter? After all Grugi, where places are dark and underground, they are bound to lurk," Elista smiled at the dwarf.

"Aye manling,"

Elista turned to Flurgrim who waited for orders.

"Rally our troops. We've got rats to burn,"

"Finally," Grugi said, "This mission is making sense,"

Well I'm not sure how far to take this

How about taking it to the top.


	3. Chapter 3

Right, right Chapter 3.

Again I don't own Warhammer, legal stuff, disclaimer and so on.

Deathmaster Snab wished he could see Nightlord Sneek's face. Snab prided himself on being able to tell whether a Skaven was lying or being truthful by just taking a glance at their features. But the Nightlord's face was clouded by the fog that wafted of the incense sticks that adorned the table the Sneek sat behind. The same green tinged fog was also warpstone laced, cloying the deathmaster's senses. He didn't know whether the Nightlord was effected by the fumes; if he was he could detect no signs.

The Nightlord spoke.

"Snab, loyal Snab," He chittered, his voice sending a cold spike through Snab's very being.

It was clear the deathlord was toying with him. Instantly a list of candidates to blame for his failure appeared in Snab's head. That Snab didn't know what the failure was hardly mattered; the blaming was always the fun part.

"Yes-yes oh master of a million murders?" Snab asked, exposing his throat in a gesture of humility.

Sneek spread his paws wide, mocking the concept of an embrace.

"Peace loyal Snab. I ask only of a task. Surely the loyal Snab can manage that?"

The deathmaster shuddered again. Sneek used the word "loyal" the same way a master moulder used a scalpel.

"Yes-yes," Was all Snab could muster. He'd been exposed to warpstone fumes before, in his more reckless younger days, but they hadn't clouded his keen senses quite like this. He guessed that the Nightlord must have access to particular potent warpstone. He made a mental note of this-any information about the Lords of Decay was valuable indeed.

"Loyal Snab, you know that most man-things don't know of our existence?"

"Yes-yes, man-things can barely see what is beneath their whisker-less nose, let alone what's deep-deep under their feet,"

Sneek chuckled, a sound that made Snab wished he hadn't tried to break the metaphorical ice with some humour.

"Of course, there are those who know-think we are here-exist,"

"You wish for me to kill-kill some man-thing and burn-burn some documents?" Snab presumed, that was after all standard procedure.

He wished that the Nightlord would say yes-yes and then Snab would scurry away from the den of the leader of clan Eshin, out onto the surface world, slit a few throats, scurry back to Skavenblight and then bully Criblet for that warp snuff he owed him.

"Yes- yes loyal Snab,"

Snab prepared to bow and slink away into the shadows, but then Sneek raised his paw.

"Wait-stay loyal Snab, I still have to speak-say mission to you," Sneek said.

Snab nodded and Sneek continued.

"That particular man-thing has been amassing lots-much information on us. Also, it is amassing an army -force. Farsqueakers have told me that it has man-thing wizard and dwarf thing-slayer. Thanquol's reports have inform-taught us that that such dwarf -things kill lots-lots of Skaven,"

Sneek ducked down beneath the table and came back with a musty looking scroll.

"This contains map of where man-thing nest-den is. I trust you know what to do loyal Snab?"

"Burn-burn and kill-kill?" Snab enquired to his superior.

"Yes-yes loyal Snab, yes-yes, now leave my presence,"

The deathmaster had never run faster.

Then it hit him.

The Nightlord hadn't told him what his mission was.

Well, he never was given the easy ones.

Gnawfang watched, bored, as a stormvermin tore the throat out of a clanrat who'd made the grave error of rummaging through the scavenge-pile before his betters. Skurn stood beside him, waiting for his master to turn his back. Gnawfang never did. Instead the warlord was amusing him by poking corpses with his feet. Sometimes a corpse would moan and he'd grin, then kick them even harder, drawing blood with the claws of his feet. All around him he could see Skaven try to offset the Black Hunger, scurry of the corpses of friends (a very loose term) and foes, tearing off chunks of flesh with their fangs. Kraddle was sat on a rock, holding his horned head in his head. Such reckless use of magic without aid had rendered the seer with a searing headache and a deep founding sense of regret. Next time he'd just let Gnawfang die. No, next time he'd ensure it. He pauses and glanced at Skurn, who was checking over his pistol, running a rag over the barrel.

The gears of plot began to turn in Kraddle's aching skull.

Then Gnawfang spun around and fixed his eyes straight onto the grey seer's. Kraddle's heart skipped several beats and his glands stained the air with fear musk. Had Gnawfang read his mind? Had he looked too suspicious? Instantly Kraddle's began to frantically think of a way out of this, wondering which words would stroke the warlord's ego best. Then the warboss turned back to his corpses. Turns out he was just glaring. Kraddle breathed a sigh of relief, low enough for Gnawfang not to hear.

Gnawfang could glare, snarl, bully and swagger all he liked. Soon the Horned Rat would roast his hide. Then he would have the true power of Clan Scrak.

Gloat-gloat all you want-desire Gnawfang, Kraddle thought, gloat-gloat all you want-desire.

"Come-come Skurn," We must discuss the glory of the Horned-Rat.

A sea of Night Goblins surrounded Elista and her force. How did she ever get herself into these things, she wondered. She cast her eyes around her troops. Most of them looked nervous, but still they kept their eyes fixed on their foe and their hands clutched their steel. Flurgrim's eyes were blazing over and Grugi looked he was willing to take on all of this goblins by himself . He probably would too.

Yet none of the goblins advanced. They instead just glared at her, with poorly made spears stuck outwards in an attempt to look threatening. Individually they'd be no match for even the sloppier elements of her soldiery, but they outnumbered her troops at least fifteen to one. She knew they if advanced carelessly, they'd be speared like a hog on a roast.

It had all been going so well. They were advancing through the caverns and, aside from the occasional grumbling about the smell of stale mushrooms, moral of her troops was reasonable, if not high. Then somewhere along the line they'd gotten lost, began to bicker and before they could register the fact that there were spiteful eyes glaring at them from the cracks in the walls, they were surrounded. The goblins were unlike those Elista had seen on the surface. True they had similar features; namely they were short and green and they stank, but there would be no mistaking them for their above-ground kin. They seemed more cunning, more shrewd and infinitely more calculating.

Given that they fought with the Skaven deep in the bowls of the earth on a regular basis, such qualities were a necessity.

She needed a plan and fast. The night goblins would attack moment now and impale them on their spears. She didn't fear death, but she didn't want to meet it just yet. And if she did have to meet him, it certainly wouldn't a damp tunnel sticking of mould and mushrooms.

"Look at that, madam, there are advancing," Flurgrim said, pointing at the circle spears enclosing on them.

There were too many. Too many to fight. Too many to beat. Too many to run from. Only one person spoke as imminent death approached them in the a circle of goblins.

"Finally," Grugi said, before launching himself into the fray.

Well it's finally here. Chapter 3.

Enjoy. And review if you've got the time.


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